Andrew Vo was raised in Huntington Beach, California by his mother, a refugee from Vietnam.
"My parents immigrated from Vietnam during the Vietnam War, so we didn't have much growing up. We were considered lower class," he says, humbly comparing his own childhood to that of his mother's, who grew up living in a>Paying for dental school
Vo graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2009 with a degree in economics. After setting his sights>"I never want to hurt anyone"
After graduating from dental school in 2015, Vo began his service in the military. He was first stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado and then at Fort Irwin in California and served as a captain and general dentist in the United States Army Dental Corps.
"I got very homesick initially," Vo remembers. That was "the most challenging part because I had never been separated from my siblings and my mom, and being spoiled in the best weather ever in California, I just missed home."
Plus, Vo had serious personal reservations about joining the armed forces.
"I was scared because I never want to shoot anyone. I never want to hurt anyone. I hear about the fear of being drafted and or relocated to a different country, and all these things seem very scary. At the end of the day, I asked myself, A, 'How am I going to pay for school?' And B, can I serve our country in a certain way? And the answer was yes and yes," he says. "So I had to push my fears aside and really kind of dive in."
As part of his service he attended basic training where he became an officer and learned how to use a gun and "how to fight if a war broke out."
While Vo saw the scholarship as a means to an end at first, he says he has met many people he admired along the way.
"I joined the military because I wanted them to pay for my school," he says "I really did it just for the money, for the scholarship to pay for it. But at the end of the day, after my four years, I fell in love with it."
After Vo's service ended in 2019, he joined the Army Reserve. For two weeks every year, he backfills for other Army dentists.
"I've met incredible people — people that have sacrificed their lives," he says. "I get to meet people who are selfless and I think that has probably been one of the best experiences — and a very humbling experience for me."
